My 5D Mark III usually gives the best results without any exposure compensation.

Colorful subjects in interesting light at +3 saturation can overload colorful highlights, so under these conditions with highlight optimization ("Highlight Tone Priority) OFF, I'll often set -0.7 compensation.

With highlight optimization ON, I find 0.0 compensation usually gives me the best results under most conditions.

As you set this, you'll see a colored chart. A and B are Amber and Blue, while M and G are Magenta and Green.

File Formats

I shoot at LARGE JPG, and set it to NORMAL (the stair-step icon) instead of the LARGE (quarter-circle icon as shown below).

Canon defaults to the FINE (quarter circle icon) setting, so I always set the NORMAL options deliberately.

Try it yourself: I've never seen any difference between NORMAL and FINE, and I do notice the smaller file sizes which transfer faster and take up much less space in my computer.

Image Size

No one needs 21MP. All it does is slow everything and clog your hard drive.

Try shooting your 5D Mark III at its M (11MP) or S (5MP) settings. If you look at your images at 100%, you'll see that the lower resolution shots are sharper pixel-by-pixel!

When I'm photographing family and friends, I shoot at SMALL JPG. Even SMALL is good enough for great 20x30" prints.

The smaller-sized images out of the 5D Mark III are spectacular. They are much, much sharper and cleaner than images from cameras on which that is their native resolution. When you start with over 20MP, it looks pretty good if you use all those to make 11MP or 5MP.

Why? Because they use less, or no, Bayer interpolation. No digital camera really resolves its rated resolution; they cheat and interpolate up, so at 100% at its rated resolution, no digital camera image is as sharp as a true scan from film.

At the 5MP setting, you have 100% R, G and B pixels, exactly as if you were using a Sigma Foveon sensor. If Sigma was selling this, they'd sell the 5MP (S) setting as if it were 15MP (also a lie).

What this means is that the lower resolution settings actually pack away lot more detail than you think. The S (5MP) setting of the 5D Mark III is a lot sharper than any 5MP camera.

M looks almost as good as L for the same reason.

If you're testing lenses, sure, shoot at L, but for everything else, try the settings for yourself, You'll probably get what you need at the smaller settings. For instance, the 11MP setting of the 5D Mark III has way more detail than any of the 12MP (native) Nikon cameras.

The resolution advantage of the 5D Mark III is obvious, even at lower settings. Try them.

Auto area select isn't very smart. To use it, set AI focus and all area mode.

When set to AI Focus (auto-select between either One-Shot or continuous AI SERVO), no longer will it hold tight on a still subject as you recompose. Now in AI Focus, it waits a moment, but will always start refocusing if the subject moves — or if you recompose.

If you want the AF area to zip all around the finder, chasing your subject as you recompose, set the combination of AI SERVO and auto-AF area select. Select a point, it focuses, and as things move, it will try to stay on your subject. It works, but not as well as even the Nikon D7000 today.

If you set it this way, it dithers and moves around so much that it will certainly impress new Canon users for a few minutes, but is very distracting if you actually intend to take pictures with all this dancing around on top of your viewfinder image.

Modes

You have three choices:

ONE SHOT

Use this for still subjects. The camera focuses, and locks as soon as it gets focus. You then may recompose.

Use this, and wait for AF to lock, before you grab the focus ring with a lens with manual-focus override. Otherwise, the 5D Mark III will keep trying to pull focus control away from you.

AI SERVO

The camera keeps trying to focus as things move around. It never stops; it always tracks your subject in and out.

Don't use this setting if you want to use instant manual-focus override by grabbing your lens' focus ring: the 5D Mark III will keep trying to focus under you.

AI FOCUS

I use this most of the time. This clever setting usually selects whichever of the two settings above is appropriate, and uses it.

This setting cleverly locks itself when the subject is still, and tracks it when it's moving.

I only select ONE SHOT when I know I'm shooting stills, otherwise, for kids or whatever pops up, AI FOCUS is my choice.

You can use manual-focus override in AI FOCUS, but only if it has locked, which it rarely does. In most cases, the 5D Mark III will keep trying to focus in AI FOCUS unless you're on a tripod.

Trick: You can redefine the depth-of-field preview button to switch to the AI SERVO mode when held down:

I use just the center point if I'm being careful in ONE SHOT, and usually select all sensors for general shooting in AI FOCUS.

The center sensor is more sensitive than the others in dim light. If the other sensors aren't doing well in dim light, choose the center sensor and you'll be much happier.

TIP: When you've selected an off-center AF sensor, we all know a center-press the thumb controller will reselect the center point, if you've got the menus set to use the thumb controller to select AF areas. That's obvious, but what's not is that if you press the center of the thumb nubbin again, it will return instantly to the off-center sensor you had selected!

Every time you press the center, it swaps between selected and center sensor.

More Fun

When set to AI Focus (auto-select between either One-Shot or continuous AI SERVO), no longer will it hold tight on a still subject as you recompose. Now in AI Focus, it waits a moment, but will always start refocusing if the subject moves — or if you recompose.

A new feature is the option of smaller "pinpoint" AF areas. THey are indicated by little ticks inside the larger boxes. I don't use them.

If you want the AF area to zip all around the finder, chasing your subject as you recompose, set the combination of AI SERVO and auto-AF area select.

Now when you tap SET, it wakes up a control screen on the rear LCD from which we can control everything with the dial, joystick and SET button.

Once you get this screen, use the thumb button to drive around, and the dial to change the setting. If you need more details about what you're setting, press the SET button again, but it's not necessary.

I do wish I could drive off one end of the screen and arrive at the other side, but it stops at the ends.

You can read and set apertures and shutter speeds on this screen, but in manual exposure mode, there is no indication for the correct exposure. For manual exposure, look at the bar graph in the finder or on the old top LCD.

If you tap the INFO button, you'll call up the very similar INFO screen, which does drive the bar graph to let you set read manual exposure.

Set these before you go out, and everything you'll need will be right at your fingertips all day or forever.

Each time you turn the dial to one of the C1, C1 or C3 positions, everything is reset to what was stored in that position.

Feel free to change any settings as you shoot in the C1, C2 or C3 positions. You won't erase what you saved. These changes will stay until the camera times-out, usually one minute (you can change that duration in the menus), and the next time you go to shoot, even if you had changed something, you're back at your saved settings.

If you want to return to the saved settings more quickly, just move the dial to any other position and return.

If you select the wrong C1, C2 or C3, you will have overwritten the settings at that position.

To Make a Temporary Change to a Stored Setting

Just change something as you would anywhere else.

As soon as you select or re-select a C setting, or as soon as the camera goes to sleep and wakes up again after your preset Auto Power Off time, set by pressing:

MENU > WRENCH • > Auto Power Off > (select time period) > SET,

your originally saved C setting is recalled.

The C settings are not altered unless you deliberately save something into them as described above.

To Make a Longer Change to a Stored Setting

The 5D Mark III system allows all sorts of ways to make things easier.

As we just learned, if you change something in a C mode, after the camera resets in usually about a minute, all your temporary settings are reset.

What if you want to keep using slightly different settings for a longer period of time?

Easy!

If you want to save them for up to about a half-hour or so, while in a C setting, press:

MENU > WRENCH • > Auto Power Off > (select longer time period) > SET.

Now the 5D Mark III will work in your C mode in your new settings for that period of time after you make your last shot, and then after that time (30 minutes maximum), automatically reverts to whatever you saved in that C setting. (If you leave that C setting and return, it also resets instantly.)

Here's the clever part: you keep that setting for 30 minutes, and when the 5D Mark III resets to your saved C setting, the time-out period also reverts to whatever you saved before, probably one minute! Thus you can alter a C setting for a while, it won't change, and when you're done, Voilà!, you're back to where you wanted to be!

To Make a Longer Change to a Stored Setting

Let's not forget the usual P, Tv, Av and M positions.

When you change one of them, they stay that way forever.

The four of them together are sort of like an unlocked C setting: every time you come back to them, they are as you left them, but if you change something while in them, they stay that way.

If dealing with some weird light that requires odd White Balance settings, you may want to use the
P, Tv, Av or M positions, and then if a different opportunity presents itself, flip into one of your C modes, and as soon as you click back into any of P, Tv, Av or M positions, you're where you left off.

Brilliant!

To have these settings update automatically

Each of these settings remains unchanged until you save a different set of settings to that dial position.

New on the 5D Mark III is that you can choose to have these settings automatically update as you change the settings, as Nikons do in their settings banks. Set this way, when you leave one setting, it will be as you left it when you return. This is handy for when you first get the camera as your preferences finalize, but I'd set it back to its default of fixed after you get comfortable.

If you save the same thing to two locations and set "auto update," they both update until you change something in just one of them.

* When set to disable, the external flash's AF illuminator works, but the flash doesn't fire. Of course this fires by default; to disable it, use the first red camera menu > External Speedlite Control > Flash firing > (enable or disable).

** Set so the 5D Mark III automatically tracks the subject all around the finder.

Highlight recovery works by reducing exposure, and them lightening most of the of the image, except for the highlights. Everything stays the same, except that blown-out highlights might not blow-out, but only if you're lucky.

It rarely makes any visible improvement. This example is the one time it actually did. It only pulls-in about one more stop, and when you've lost a highlight, it usually is either further overexposed than that, or it's OK without any of these shenanigans.

"Reducing exposure" is another way of saying that it shoots at a higher ISO by default. You can't shoot at ISO 50 or ISO 100; with highlight recovery ON, it starts at ISO 200.

Sadly, the 5D Mark III has rather visible noise in the shadows at ISO 200, even in broad daylight.

Therefore, I avoid this feature for careful work, and leave it ON when I'm already using higher ISOs.

It's easy to assign this ON or OFF in the C1, C2 and C3 positions, so it's easy to have it turn ON or OFF as conditions change.

Each time you make a new folder, it's number increments by one. You can't name them.

It's easy to use this menu to see what folders you have, and what's in them.

I make a new folder each day. Sadly, unlike Canon's point-and-shoots, there is no option for having new, dated, folders automatically created for you each day. Again, the Powershot and EOS teams need to have sake together more often.

If you have to ask how to set it, then you'll probably make it worse if you fiddle with this.

If you insist on playing with it, know that only about one lens in twenty needs any adjustment, and the results are only visible at large apertures.

If you use zoom lenses, be forewarned that there is only one setting available per lens, and that zooms may need different settings for each focal length.

When you do set it, the 5D Mark III is smart enough to recall different settings for different lenses as you set them, automatically.

When setting it, use natural targets like trees. Don't use tilted flat targets, since the actual location of the AF sensors is never really exactly where they are marked in the finder.

To set it, you need to make many, many test shots to arrive at a setting. Every shot varies a little from shot to shot; no AF system gives the same result for each shot. Make at least 5 shots at every distance, and try every distance, since the settings can vary by distance.

It's marked in "Forward" and "Backward," which makes no sense. As observed, "Forward" means that the focus is pushed further away from the camera, and "Backward" means that focus is pulled closer to the camera.

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